Accessibility features

On Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 sites, you can perform most tasks by using accessibility features such as keyboard shortcuts. In addition to the accessibility features and utilities in Microsoft Windows, the features described in this article make sites more accessible for people with disabilities.

Note: The information in this topic applies only to users who license Microsoft products in the United States. If you obtained this product outside the United States, your package contains a subsidiary information card listing Microsoft support services telephone numbers and addresses. You can contact your subsidiary to find out whether the type of products and services described here are available in your area. For more information that is available in other languages, including Japanese and French, see http://www.microsoft.com/enable/worldwide.htm.

More Accessible Mode

On an Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Office Forms Server 2007 site, most user interface (UI) elements, such as links, form controls, and buttons, are designed to use Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA). MSAA enables people with disabilities to interact with content by using accessibility tools such as screen readers, which are devices that provide a synthesized speech or Braille description of what a blind or low-vision user is unable to see on a computer screen or Web site. Because some custom UI elements do not use MSAA properties, you can turn on More Accessible Mode. This mode renders custom controls as an equivalent standard HTML controls. This rendering ensures that users of accessibility tools are able to interact with the custom controls.

Note: More Accessible Mode does not enable alternate versions of every UI element. For example, if someone in your organization customizes a SharePoint site by adding a custom control, enabling More Accessible Mode does not automatically create an alternate version of that control.

You turn More Accessible Mode on or off by pressing the TAB key immediately after placing focus on the page in a browser. Press the TAB key until you reach the Turn on more accessible mode or Turn off more accessible mode link. Even though the link to turn on More Accessible Mode is the first element in the tab order — which means that it is the first option that you interact with on the page — you may need to press the TAB key more than once to activate the feature. This is because the browser menus or toolbars may initially have the active focus. More Accessible Mode changes the way that the page renders for you, not for other users of the site. Because this is a local setting, no one besides you knows that you enabled this setting. More Accessible Mode remains enabled until you turn it off or close your browser. More Accessible Mode enables the following items to be rendered in a way that optimizes them to work better with accessibility tools such as screen readers:

Menus Instead of displaying a drop-down menu of options for files in a document library, a new browser window is opened that contains all of the menu items as hyperlinks. This format is easier for accessibility tools to interpret.

Optimized fields Some fields are difficult for accessibility tools to interpret. When More Accessible Mode is enabled, these fields are replaced with fields that are optimized for accessibility tools. For example, some SharePoint lists support enhanced text fields that enable users to add formatted text, images, tables, and hyperlinks. Because of the way these fields are rendered in a browser, some accessibility tools cannot read them. When More Accessible Mode is enabled, such fields are replaced with standard plain text fields that are compliant with accessibility tools.

In addition to enhanced text fields, several other types of fields are replaced with alternate fields in More Accessible Mode.

List of fields and alternate fields in More Accessible Mode

Field in standard mode

Alternate field in More Accessible Mode

Enhanced text field

Multiple line text field

Graphical summary charts (for surveys)

Table with table headers

Gantt chart (in a project list)

Table with table headers

A table with table headers also appears below a Gantt chart in standard mode.

Contact selector

Text field

Note: More Accessible Mode does not limit functionality, but instead enables alternate rendering methods for page elements so that they are compatible with accessibility tools.

Keyboard shortcuts

Many features and commands are available directly by using the keyboard. You can press the TAB key and SHIFT+TAB to move back and forth between elements on any page. You can also find keyboard shortcuts for many commands. For more information, see Keyboard shortcuts.

Navigation

The page and navigation elements on a site follow a logical and intuitive tab order. The tab order is the order in which you move the focus from one UI element to another by pressing the TAB key. In addition, two important options — the Turn on more accessible mode link and the Skip to main content link — are the first two options in the tab order. If you want to turn on More Accessible Mode, you can do so by pressing the TAB key after the page in the browser has active focus. In addition, if you want to skip repetitive navigation links and go directly to the main content area of the page, you can do so by pressing the TAB key until you reach the Skip to main content link.

In addition, the pages in an Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Office Forms Server 2007 site use breadcrumb navigation links that identify where the current page or site fits into the overall hierarchy of the site or site collection. These navigation links appear near the top of most pages, under the page name. For example, if you browse to a folder named Reports in the Shared Documents library for the Contoso site, the navigation links may display Contoso > Shared Documents > Reports.

Headings

Table headings For tabular data tables, table header cells are used (TH tags). For example, on the Announcements page, in the default All Items view, the column headers Title and Modified are contained in table header cells. Table header cells help users to understand the structure of a table and improve the reading experience for people who use accessibility tools.

Heading tags Tags are used on sites to help convey the structure of the page to users of accessibility tools. The heading tags (H1, H2, H3, and H4) build a logical outline of the content on a page. If you use an accessibility tool such as a screen reader, you can configure it to read only the heading tags on a page. This virtual outline of heading tags helps to improve the clarity of the page content. For example, the home page for a site contains one H1 tag that contains the site title, one H2 tag that contains the page title, an H3 tag around the View All Site Content link, and H3 tags around the title of each Web Part. Users of certain accessibility tools can retrieve an outline based on these tags and use it to easily understand the layout of the page and skip to the heading that they want.

Images, alternative text, and display settings

Alternative text and titles for images People with visual disabilities cannot see images (such as files in JPEG, GIF, or PNG formats), and rely on the use of alternative text for images on a site. Alternative text for images is set with the ALT attribute inside the IMG tag. Without well-written and informative alternative text visually impaired users have no way to understand the meaning of the images on a page. The alternative text also appears in visual browsers if the image does not load or if the rendering of images is not enabled for a browser. SharePoint sites use descriptive ALT text for images that convey meaning or important information to users. Images that are considered spacer images or have no informational value contained in them have ALT="". which tells accessibility tools that the images do not convey content or information.

In addition, when you upload an image file to a site, you can add alternative text to that image, which is fundamental to creating an accessible site. For example, the Site Image Web Part contains a field in which you can type custom ALT text when you add an image. When you add pictures to a picture library, you can define custom ALT text for the pictures.

Occasionally, clicking an element opens a new browser window. The ALT text for images that open new windows, and title attributes for hyperlinks that do so, contain additional information to help the user understand that a new window will open. For example, the title attribute of a hyperlink that opens a new window contains (new window).

Support for High Contrast color schemes The pages in a SharePoint site are designed to display correctly if you apply a High Contrast color scheme to your computer.

Using accessibility tools

Some accessibility tools may not work well with certain elements on the pages in a site. If you experience problems, refer to the following information and resources for possible solutions.

Note: It is recommended that users with accessibility tools activate More Accessible Mode. This mode enables users to interact with the elements of an Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Office Forms Server 2007 site by using accessibility tools such as screen readers.

Working with Windows Speech Recognition in Windows Vista

Windows Speech Recognition is a speech based accessibility tool that is available in Windows Vista. Windows Speech Recognition enables users to perform actions by speaking instead of using a keyboard or mouse.

There are known issues related to the use of Windows Speech Recognition with some menus on an Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Office Forms Server 2007 page, including the menus for New, Upload, Welcome User and the drop-down menu of options that are available for files in a document library.

To access these menus by using Windows Speech Recognition, activate More Accessible Mode by doing the following:

Open the site home page in a browser, and then say, "Press TAB" until the Turn on more accessible mode link appears.

Say, "Press ENTER."

To use a split button menu such as the New or Upload button on a list toolbar, or to use the menu of options for a document in a document library, bring the active focus to the element first by saying, "Press TAB," and then say, "Press ALT DOWN ARROW."

A new browser window that contains links from the menu will open.

Note: For menus that have more than one command, say, "Press ALT DOWN ARROW."

Using Help

Some accessibility tools such as screen readers may not work with the expandable links in online Help. If you experience problems, try installing Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or Internet Explorer 6. For more information, visit the Internet Explorer Web site.

Note: The hyperlinks in this topic go to the Web. You can switch back to Help at any time.

Features provided by your Web browser

Your Web browser has features that improve the readability of pages. For information about the accessibility features provided by your Web browser, look for information in the Help for the browser about how to customize your browser to display the fonts and colors that you prefer. If your browser is Internet Explorer, look for Accessibility in the Help table of contents.

Getting more accessibility information

The Microsoft Accessibility Web site at Microsoft Accessibility provides information about assistive technology for improving the lives of people with disabilities. The information on this site benefits people with disabilities and their friends and family members, people in outreach organizations, educators, and advocates.